Social Media

Uncertain Future For Some ISPs

ISPs throttle data. ISPs cap data. ISPs don’t like data. Or at least not very much of it anyway.

You’ve heard the stories, you’ve read the commentary, you’ve weighed the pros and cons, and most of you have likely fallen on the no-limits side of the divide. For data consumption, that is. If nothing else, it's really just a whole lot less complicated than what Cox and others are proposing and implementing, which is to tell you the subscriber to eat your heart out, if only to a certain extent. One more person to follow countless others in learning first-hand of a glass ceiling is Paul Ellis of TechConsumer.

Some providers want to meter by the byte. Some want to charge you a flat monthly fee for roughly 70-80 gigs on the downstream, and request more cash for anything over. Whatever their pitch, ISPs are telling users that their promises for unlimited use can’t actually be taken at face value.

They blame several things on these conflicting discrepancies. Web video, for one. They didn’t envision the stuff to take off like it has. They say they haven’t procured all the componentry necessary to enable all those ones and zeroes to flow as needed, and that consumers will either have to live with a strict monthly quota or pay some more to continue satisfying their increasingly voracious appetites, and in turn pay for the delayed upgrades.

Which is puzzling to hear. Now, Cox may be an exception to other big name ISPs in that it is not a publicly-traded company, like Comcast and Cablevision. It need not answer to investors. But it still has to answer to its users. And if Cox’s position on capping data is to default to the fine print of its corporate clauses, well, that means it’s not being very smart with its network. Some of the income gathered through billing should be going toward boosts on the backend. Yet, since that backend supposedly cannot handle the load from users, due to lack of development or whathaveyou, then it’s forced to continue keeping users from making the most of their connections. A technological dead end, as it were.

It needn't be this way.

Ellis allows that he’s not philosophically against these limits. He’s seems to just be against how Cox is managing them. But I’ll venture to press more heavily on Cox and any other ISPs metering their networks in similar fashion. I’ll say that if such activity ensues well into the future, the fortunes of stagnant providers, whether they live the Wall Street way or not, will be finite.

There are a number of providers which are investing quite heavily today in technologies that will greatly expand the networking possibilities for business and consumers alike. In the U.S., Verizon and AT&T in particular are pressing ahead with extensive fiber optic installations. If those efforts prove financially viable in the short run - which, given the solid performances shown by both competitors in the wired and wireless worlds, it seems that they very well might - those networks will then spread nationwide. And, well, the rest is fairly self-explanatory. To tell it briefly, because fiber channels facilitate large data transfers at very low cost, networks functioning wholly via the optical paradigm can pass savings on to consumers. Which would leave traditional cable operators struggling to compete.

Though Verizon and AT&T are champions of big business and manage networks that exemplify market domination, I imagine both will prove to have chosen precisely the right way in which to navigate the next decade. My justification for thinking so is simple. The developments to come about from Web-based companies, especially those from media-heavy services like YouTube, will require fewer network caps, not more, and in order for limits to be raised, the telecommunications infrastructure(s) for consumers need to be able to handle what’s to come, and handle it well. Really well. End to end fiber is the solution, I believe, and those ISPs that recognize the need for limitless access are evidently investing appropriately.

What it all comes down to is this. While wireless media is an intriguing convenience for Web users, the home is surely where most data will be consumed via the Web, regardless of the presence of things like 3G and 4G. The focus on the home entertainment center won’t change. Not for a long time, anyway. Traditional phone and cable television companies have all learned that truth. But only a small number of service providers have correctly predicted and planned for what’s to come in 5 to 10 years. The rest will struggle, stumble, and some will fail.

I may be wrong to posit such a guess, but I’m under the impression that anyone, including Cox, with the gumption to push against the tide, will fail. If that means only a few giants survive, so be it. Because though consumers may like having a choice, there’s something much more fundamental that they want even more. And that is access. Complete access.

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